John Frusciante (ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers) announces he will no longer release music

on Thu, 05/28/2015 - 15:56

John Frusciante, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist 1988 to 1992 and again from 1998 to 2009, in a new interview with electronic music resource and website Electronic Beats, gave an in depth interview regarding his recent musical endeavors (his self-titled album "Trickfinger" was released April 7th), his departure from the public eye (as well as his music) and historical electronic music genres such as jungle beat and acid house.

Known as a recluse, Frusciante very seldom subjects himself to interviews anymore. The interview subsequently covers the course of much of his experiences from the '90s to the present day. On his initial feelings towards rave music and his place in music in his tenure with the Chili Peppers, Frusciante said:

"I didn't like it. Before I joined [the Red Hot Chili Peppers], the band used to talk shit about drum machines in interviews - they kept being compared to the Beastie Boys because they were white, and a lot of their beats back then were kind of similar to jungle. They used to play really fast funk, a bit like when jungle producers speed up samples of soul and funk, so I had an ear for it. I heard jungle beats in my head long before that kind of music was ever made, it’s a logical progression from Jimi Hendrix's Fire, drums and things like that. But during the 90s, I was in such a different world that I didn't have any awareness of rave culture... I was a drug addict for most of the time, anyway. I had little awareness of what was going on outside of my house and the weird drug culture that I lived in, which wasn't about ecstasy. When I stopped being a drug addict, I started going out dancing at jungle clubs and meeting people who put on raves. But yeah, I kind of missed the 90s."

Since his second tenure with the Chili Peppers, his music increasingly moved in a direction away from the rock driven music of the Chili Peppers that initially inspired him and he eventually helped to perpetuate. The band's 2002 album "By the Way", with a noticeable electronic and new wave influence, acts as a prelude to his solo work in many ways, as he took charge of much of the instrumentation of the album, much to Flea's distress.

Frusciante compared his imaginings of what shows would be like as 10/11 year old listening to punk records by the likes of Black Flag and the Germs to the unity of the rave scene:

"Yeah, you could hear it [the unity of the rave scene] right off the records. You didn't have to be in the club to imagine what it was like, which is how punk was for me as a little kid. When I was into punk, I was 10 or 11 years old. I wasn't old enough to go out to the shows, but I really wanted to. At that time in LA, violence was a big thing at punk shows, and that seemed exciting to me. I couldn't be a part of it, so I just listened to the records and imagined the atmosphere around the music. I still feel that when I listen to old rave records from the 90s. We forget that such a big part of music is what our minds are capable of adding to it. The particular way the human mind creates or hears music is half of what the music is. Music in and of itself doesn't has any complete value."